New Labour was never a year zero, but an embrace of proud Labour traditions. It isn’t a body of doctrine, but a cast of mind as revisionist as Tony Crosland’s Future of Socialism in unsentimentally separating core values – ends – and policy instruments – means. It is as hard-headed as Ernest Bevin was in always seeking to be grounded in lived realities, not abstract theories, and in recognising that our core values will be best realised within these lived realities with Labour in power.

It is a governmental philosophy in both always seeking to have Labour in office and, when holding office, to exercise power, not in pursuit of sectional interests, but in the best interests of the whole country. This objectivity in governance is not to the exclusion of core values, but is the embodiment of these values: equality and fairness for all people irrespective of their class, gender, race, religion, sexuality or where they live.

New Labour’s future must be about recovering the best of its past. As when the party has previously found itself in opposition we now need what New Labour can offer: clarity of values, innovation in our means, immersion in our communities and absolute focus on winning at the next election. Lack of these things has previously kept Labour in opposition for longer than it should have been. New Labour’s task is to avoid repeating this fate.

This requires certainty about our values. Greater justice means a more equal country, not just in income, but also in wealth, health, power, safety and opportunities. We need to have active citizens and to make the most of all talents and aspirations.

While these ends are timeless, New Labour is restless about the means for realising them. New Labour has no ideological preference for state or market and recognises state failure as well as market failure. Pursuit of our ends never necessarily meant the state taking up an ever-larger percentage of GDP and now, given the deficit, which economic prudence and fiscal credibility demand that we tackle robustly, it certainly cannot mean this.

It does mean, however, being reformers of both market and state: determined to bust cartels and to make public services truly responsive and personalised; as passionate about tackling median wage stagnation as about secondary redistribution through taxation; concerned both with competition in the banking sector and with public services that deepen social capital.

We can address the connection between lack of competition in the banking sector and lack of credit flow for small businesses without bashing bankers. While being balanced in our tone and analysis, we should be radical in our policy prescriptions.

But the most groundbreaking policies won’t come from policy wonks like me. If we build social capital, as far-sighted policy models like cooperative councils do, the most radical and effective policies will come from communities themselves. Unleashing this native genius and attuning ourselves to the best instincts of these communities will allow us to become the political wing of the squeezed middle. This is what Labour needs to be to make real our values, and return to government.